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20/11/2007

Metaphors

Many times, the best way to explain hard data is using metaphors. A " Is like..." that spaniards use to do always with football ("This cricket player is the Ronaldinho of cricket"). Metaphors work very well with health issues. A very good example is the YV series Érase una vez la Vida (spanish title). Thanks to this series many of us who were toddlers were this program was on TV know now how antibodies or white cells work.

With the same idea Fritz Kahn created this poster in 1926, explaining the "man as an industrial palace (seen on Boing Boing). On it is tried to explain the digestive and respiratory systems. The moment it was created the chemichal industry was very strong in Germany, so people were used to industrial issues rather than biological ones. Today, our work has to look for the same idea: find easy referals for complex data. Always with rigor adn being careful for the metaphor npt being modifying the real reference, but explaining and making easy to understand data that other way would be hard to tell. The essence of our job.